Just seen on police twitter, the M6 southbound between J18 - J17 will be closed tonight (Sat 4th Aug) and tomorrow, between 10pm - 8am.
The diversion through Holmes Chapel takes you through two right turns at traffic lights and, ludicrously, a three way control temporary set of lights.
Going south on Thursday night there were five separate motorway closures between Preston and West Bromwich:
- M6 J31 off and straight back on again but +5 minutes to get through the traffic lights on the exit slip.
- M6 J27-26 through Standish and Wigan and back on at J25 +20 mins.
- M6 J20A-19 east onto the M56 and south on A556 +10 mins (No warning on gantries)
- M6 J18-17 through Holmes Chapel +45 mins
- M5 at M6 J8 - M5 J2 all the way round the M42 +20 mins
J17-18, whilst only 4 miles long, is the worst of any of the closures between Knutsford and Stafford purely because of all the traffic lights.
Presumably someone at Highways England has some sort of responsibility for co-ordinating the closures and has some sort of encouragement to make sure there aren’t too many on the same night on the same route. If there is such a person, and I was as bad at my job as they are at their’s, I’d be fully expecting the sack.
Good planning as ever I see . As download rewind festival is on in that area this weekend. Just imagine the chaos as thousands of people leave Sunday night or sat night to find m6 shut.
Have I read that right reopens at 8am?
you most likely find the powers that be in highways england are keen cyclists and act accordingly.
how hard would it be when the close motorways to have a plod,or even perish the thought a couple of fat wombles doing a manual override on the lights to let the 99.9% volume of traffic flow smoothly.
the workies can do it when digging holes,surely a womble could be capable of similar(obviously after several seminars,inductions,and risk assessments of course)
It was closed Saturday early morning and the diversion was chaos at 2am. Must have been horrible for all the people living along that route as it was 95% wagons slowly moving through to the villages. The split diversion is pretty peaceful if you take the high vehicle route albeit a bit long.
When Rewind finishes, the 30 mins extra it cost me is going to be hours I guess.
trevHCS:
It was closed Saturday early morning and the diversion was chaos at 2am. Must have been horrible for all the people living along that route as it was 95% wagons slowly moving through to the villages. The split diversion is pretty peaceful if you take the high vehicle route albeit a bit long.
You do know it was closed the week before, northbound, same diversion… those road works ■■■■ it all up when someone tries going the other way lol
Last time this was closed I went into Middlewich, left at lights down the A553 along the canal, left at the r/b in Sanbach onto the A534 and straight back onto the M6 at 17.
Only me and a tanker did it, no bridges or restrictions, everyone else plodded on the “official diversion” while I might have lost 15 mins or so.
There is a lowish bridge thoigh around middlwich centre if memory serves me.right but easy enough to go around…and I agree I try to avoid official diversions.hence I keep a map handy
Norfolkinclue1:
\went into Middlewich, left at lights down the A553 along the canal,
WTF i never knew you could do that… my god, well looking on the map, I should have, delivered a few times to british salt. what a knob
edd1974:
There is a lowish bridge thoigh around middlwich centre if memory serves me.right but easy enough to go around…and I agree I try to avoid official diversions.hence I keep a map handy
Low isn;t the word I would use to describe it
well its not high is it . so must be low.
unless your at stobarts then its a challenge to see if your fit